


First Impression

by LesbianTrot



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:34:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25329352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LesbianTrot/pseuds/LesbianTrot
Summary: It’s Lister’s first day abord Red Dwarf, and before he even meets Rimmer, he gets a strong impression of what his new bunk mate is like.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	First Impression

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic! Thank you to bloodscout for proofreading!

Lister placed his palm against the scanner, and the doors parted with a whoosh revealing his new quarters.

The first think he noticed was how clean and tidy it was. Pencils were lined up in perfect parallel on the desk. The bunks had perfect hospital corners. Every inch was spotless and had been cleaned obsessively. A shiver passed down Lister’s spine. It reminded him of a show home crossed with a horror film asylum.

He couldn’t tell which bunk was taken since they both were made immaculately, so just plonked his bag of belongings down on the floor.

He noticed a bookshelf next to an inflatable banana, the only touches of colour or character in the whole drab grey and white room. He read the titles: The Campaigns of Alexander the Great; The Leadership Genius of Julius Caesar; The Military Maxims of Napoleon Bonaparte; The Art of Seduction; The Rules of the Game; How to Effortlessly Attract the Women You Want; 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos; and, Taking the Redpill: Why Incels are Right. Next to these were a stack of magazines entitled Fascist Dictator Monthly, Jair Bolsonaro saluting on the top cover. Another shiver went down Listers spine. Who is this fascist, pickup-artist, incel freak who he’s going to have to share a room with for this four year trip, all the way to the edge of the solar system and back?

Lister thought back to his more radical student days. Or more precisely, his student day. He hadn’t stayed enrolled in art college very long, but long enough to meet a bunch of left wing student activists and assorted lefty artists and musicians who he’d hung around with for years. Back then he could hardly speak a sentence without denouncing someone as bourgeois, or something as crypto-fascist.

Those were heady days. There was a hopper-can strike that lasted weeks. He’d heard that miners on Titan had struck too. It seemed there was a new strike nearly every day, and his artist friends were constantly making propaganda for the striking workers.

He first joined an art collective, then a band. They were always a bit sad that their most popular and successful song was their least political, Om, and not one of their others like Dentists are Petty Bourgeois Scum, or their sham-glam cover of a piece of classical music they had discovered, Nazi Punks Fuck Off.

His band mates Dobbin and Gazza has later moved far to the right, but Lister hadn’t. He nearly got recruited into the Revolutionary Workers Front, but was glad he didn’t when he found out later they had turned to terrorism.

He might not be so radical any more, but he still felt working-class pride. He plunged his hand into the deep pocket of his cargo pants, and clasped his membership card for the Technicians Union. Joining it was the first thing he had done after getting his job. A fascist like his new bunk mate made his blood boil.

Lister heard the whooshing sound of the doors again, and turned around to see his new bunk mate enter. He was sickly pale, his nose stuck in the air and nostrils flaring as if Lister were a bad smell. His thick bushy hair was plastered down onto his head, but wasn’t shorn as short as Lister had imagined it would have been for such a military obsessed fascist. (Surely that’s not regulation length?) He held himself as if he had a pole inserted far up his rear end, and his body language towards Lister indicated he was a senior officer, but the pips on his lapel gave the game away—he was only a Second Technician, a prole like Lister, merely a rank above. But obviously for this man (his name badge said “Rimmer”), that rank meant everything.  
“Ah,” Rimmer ejaculated. He awkwardly bounced on the balls of his feet. “So you’re my new bunk mate, Lister,” he said sneeringly.  
“Yeah,” replied Lister.  
“‘Yes, Mr Rimmer, Sir!,’” Rimmer barked. “If you follow the book and show me respect, I’m sure these next four years we will get along swimmingly!”

“So which bunk is yours? Mr Rimmer, Sir.”  
“Mine’s the top. You can take the bottom,” he replied dismissively.   
Rimmer walked over to the sink next to the bunks to wash his hands. As lister hoisted his large, heavy rucksack up onto the top bunk he made sure it collided solidly with the back of Rimmer’s head.  
“Sorry,” he said without an ounce of genuine contrition on his voice, “Rimmer.”


End file.
